Toshiba to launch 128GB SSD

Toshiba will be jumping into the deep end of the pool, joining several other companies that have announced new solid state drives.

Toshiba is unique, however, by announcing that it will produce a 128GB SSD drive that will be launching in the May 2008 time frame, while the flash memory that is being produced for the drives should start rolling off the line some time in March 2008. In other to reach the 128GB drive capacity, Toshiba will be using 56nm density NAND flash with multi-level cells, which was key in being able to reach this size.

Toshiba will be offering the drives in 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB capacities. The drive will feature a SATA 2 interface and will be available in both the 1.8” and 2.5” form factors, which will make it not only ideal for laptops (which normally use the 2.5” form factor), but other devices that normally use drives in the 1.8-inch form factor. The SSD drives are said to be rated at a blistering 100MB per second for reads, and a reasonable 40MB per second for writes. The drive will carry an operating life of about 1,000,000 hours.